Scrutinising
Reading between lines
The common things that most women do so well. Certain traits are acquired, certain cultivated but there are those eternal ones which one is born with. Let us take the emotion of feeling pain. Even when I utter the word 'pain,' I can think of atleast three references to what caused me pain. Effortlessly it flows. No initiation. No forcing. It just flows. And how . . .
I remember whenever I am so pained that I start crying, I cry not only for the present pain but for all the pains that have passed by me. And that happens in chronological order. That's magic. How can one be coherent in pain? Well, it happens.
After the order, comes the detail. I think no one else can be a sucker for details as me. Gradually the scene unfolds (of the past pains). The dialogues. The exact words. The pain that was there then. The days of wallowing in self-pity. The end which strengthened and made me spur on.
The place and the time: Well, I tend to take it a bit further and think of the songs that reminded me of that pain.
This does not happen when I am happy. Happiness captures only the present moment. No flashbacks. No details. Probably that is why happiness is lovely to be in as it completely wraps up your senses to the present. And that's why I like to be happy happy. Sometimes one forgets that and raises tragedy to greater heights calling it the high point of emotion. Nah.
Let me leave you with a poem by Hopkins. It talks of pain.
'No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief.'
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing —
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."'
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
Poem courtesy: Internet
